The invention relates generally to counterfeit protection for printed and digital documents, packaging and other printed materials, and more particularly to the secure production of encoded images for use in counterfeit protection measures.
Counterfeiting and alteration of valuable documents and black market sales of counterfeit goods are significant problems faced with increasing regularity in today's world. Each year many millions of dollars are lost through the fraudulent use of non-authentic documents and branded goods. The increasing sophistication of optical scanners, copy machines and other devices used for replicating items continues to enhance the counterfeiter's ability to produce fraudulent documents and other imitations which are of sufficient quality to often go undetected.
One method of providing increased security against unauthorized copying, alteration or counterfeiting is to apply an encoded image to the item to be protected. This image may include a visually apparent image (visible image) along with a non-visible or hidden image incorporated into the visible image in such a way as to be difficult or impossible to view without an optical or digital decoder configured specifically for viewing the hidden image. Application of such encoded images to documents and other items subject to counterfeiting allows the authenticity of such items to be readily verified by anyone having an appropriate decoder.
The content of encoded images can be widely variable and may be changed on a regular basis. The content may even be tied specifically to the individual item to which it is applied, in which case it must be generated very quickly in order to be considered a practical security measure. Accordingly, methods of producing encoded images should be flexible and preferably available to users on short notice.
It is therefore advantageous to make encoded image production readily available to individual users. Doing so, however, raises the concern that the encoded images themselves may be tampered with or produced by unauthorized users for application to counterfeit articles or altered documents. Another concern is that the authorized user can use the encoding software for non-authorized purposes, such as to protect printed material he is not allowed to encode. Accordingly, sophisticated control measures are required to assure that encoded images are produced only by authorized users and to assure that such authorized users produce only authorized encoded images.